Geo-Information Management and Control Methods

Institute for environment and sustainability

Action: 21102

Acronym: GeoCAP

Summary:

This Action addresses new information needs for European Policies related to Agriculture and Regional Development, such as Cross Compliance, Farm Advisory System, food quality and agri-product origin traceability (through the parcel identifier). In 2008, the reformed Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) underwent a "Health Check", to assess where the 2003 legislation can be fine-tuned and to pave the way for the future design and priorities of the CAP. 2009 will also be the first year of these reforms, and will be supported by the Action through the definition, development and testing of extensive, standardized and sustainable control methods in a variety of agriculture-related areas.

The Action will follow-up future development in Geomatics techniques, and support land administration (cadastre) and multipurpose large scale mapping approaches; common specifications, standard measurement and data management tools, and validated methods will be studied to reinforce the consistency of land parcel identification and measurement across the Union and in Candidate Countries. Research will be continue to be undertaken towards the development of a European-wide geo- database, and the testing and implementation of INSPIRE principles, in support of Rural Development.

In order to achieve these goals, the action is organized in three teams: Agricultural Policy Instruments (API), covering the evaluation and analysis of new instruments in the CAP (Cross Compliance, quality, traceability & certification, issues related to Rural Development), promotion of best practice approaches, and preparation of recommendations; Geo-Information Management (GeoInf), focused on the main task of organising and making available data to respond to various policy needs; Development of Control Methods (DCM), addressing the technical and scientific evolutions linked to area-based payments controls.